All That's Left
by HannahChaan
Summary: A story of romance in the face of inevitable death, in which Kiba falls for Hikari, a young girl with terminal cancer.


Chapter One

It was Saturday; warm, sunny and breezy - the perfect day after what felt like an eternity of solid rain. The air was fresh, and a whistle played across Kiba's lips as he strolled down the high street.

The perfect day for a trip to the bookstore.

(Incidentally, almost every day for the past three months had been the perfect day for a trip to the book store. And the reasons as to why he hadn't gone on occasions had less to do with the perfect-ness of the day and more to do with other plans cropping up).

The shop was reasonably old and shabby looking; the front wouldn't suffer from a fresh lick of paint, perhaps a new window or two. But it was owned by this crazy old lady who couldn't see anything wrong with it, despite Kiba's repeated offers to do all the manual labour himself for free.

Of course, this had less to do with Kiba's good nature (although he liked to think that played a part) and more to do with the old lady's attractive granddaughter.

Kiba had first met Hikari several months ago, when he'd been dragged into the shop by Hinata. She was adorably shy, and had helped them find the books on the list with flaming cheeks. But he'd be taken by her, and returned most days to see her. She was more talkative now than she'd initially been, but often Kiba tended to just talk at her rather than to her. She was a good listener though, and didn't mind this. She'd pay avid attention, making little "I see" and "Yeah"s in the correct places.

When she did talk to him, though, it was often to recommend a book. He now had practically an entire library stacked on his bedroom floor – all carrying a promise that he'd thoroughly enjoy each of them. He'd read them all too, to impress her, and while he'd found many pretentious there had been reasonably good parts.

Kiba pushed open the rusty door with some difficult, and heard the old worn-out bell attempt a jingle but give up. Inside it was quite dark, with rows upon rows of bookshelves and there, in her usual corner, was Hikari.

She was small, the top of her head just brushing 5'3", with soft brown hair and dark green eyes. Her frame was frail, her limbs seemingly lacking any muscle at all. As she stood, she readjusted the nasal cannula delivering oxygen to her lungs, and tilted the metal cart onto its wheels as she headed towards Kiba.

Hikari had lung cancer. She'd had lung cancer since she was 12, and while she told anyone who asked that she was living with it, not dying from it, Kiba knew her time was a lot shorter than it should be. Every day she seemed to get paler, and while the doctors in the Konoha hospital were frantically searching for a lung donor with a matching tissue type, she seemed to have accepted one would not appear before she died. Not that she was sad about it; on the contrary, for a 16 year old whose life expectancy was below 30 she seemed to be in reasonably high spirits most of the time.

"Back again are we?"

He smiled – the greeting was the same most days.

"I finished "To Kill A Mockingbird" he told her, leading her back to the armchairs in the corner so she could sit. "It was good. Probably one of my favourites."

She beamed at this.

"Mine too. I mean, asides from Nineteen Eighty-Four. And Cold Comfort Farm. Oh, but Barchester Towers is good too..."

A small frown creased her smooth brow as she reeled off a long list of classics, all of which qualified as her "all-time favourite book". Kiba just smiled as he watched her. Books were the only thing he'd ever seen her get passionate about, and he knew if he let her she'd talk for days on end about them.

"So, what d'you fancying reading today?" she asked, moving past Kiba and towards the nearest towering bookshelf.

"Nothing today, thanks," Kiba said, following her idly. She turned to look at him, surprise on her face.

"O-oh, that's okay," she smiled, clearly fighting back the flustered blush threatening to stain her cheeks. "Just you normally..." her sentence trailed off, as she watched Kiba watching her.

"Fancy a walk?" he asked suddenly. The surprise returned – they'd never been anywhere together except the bookshop

"Um, sure, I just need to check-"

"You can go, dear."

Hikari's crazy grandmother was standing behind them, a wide knowing smile on her face. For a lady that was nearing her 85th birthday, she sure could move silently, Kiba thought.

"Thanks nana~"

Hikari smiled, and lead the way out of the store.

Now that they were out in the sunlight (for the first time) Kiba could see just how pale she was. It concerned him – he liked her. A lot. But she was so fragile, and even just walking down the street caused her breathing to become laboured and heavy. _She's not long for this world,_ he thought sadly. _And she's going to spend the rest of her life trying to keep up with us, as she slowly falls behind._

He pushed the thoughts to the back of his head. No point worrying over it, he couldn't just produce a pair of lungs with matching tissue types from thin air. And he certainly couldn't remove the cancer cells.

They walked in a comfortable silence for about ten minutes before reaching the park. Kiba led her to a bench near the fountain and they watched the small children splashing about in the cool water, making the most of the sunny weather while it lasted.

Hikari turned to him, as if she was about to start talking, but he cut her off.

"I'm going away for a couple of months."

She looked at him, bewilderment settling on her face.

"What?"

"We got a mission in the Land of Clouds," he sighed. "It's going to take a while – not including all the travelling. We leave in three weeks, and we might not be back til autumn."

Her face fell even as she tried to prevent it from doing so.

"That sucks," she mumbled. "I'm going to miss you."

"I'll miss you too."

Silence.

"But hey, when I get back I'll have a whole load of new stories to tell you!" He grinned down at her, attempting to shine some light on a pretty dull situation. She smiled politely and seemed enthusiastic enough, but there was something reserved about the way she spoke. It put Kiba on an edge, and made him even more unwilling to leave her. But he knew he didn't have a say in it – and anyway, it wasn't like they were dating. He may be rather infatuated with this girl, but that was certainly no reason to turn down a mission of this high calibre. Not matter how much he wanted to.

They talked aimlessly for the rest of the afternoon, Kiba trying desperately to cheer the brunette up. No matter how hard he tried, though, she remained subdued for the rest of the day, and eventually she left, leaving Kiba watching her go with clear yearning on his face.

At around eleven that night, Kiba's phone buzzed. He was sat with Akamaru watching TV and initially ignored it – he was still feeling concerned about the way Hikari had acted that afternoon. But then it went off twice more and he snatched it up with a growl. _If that's Naruto asking for money again, he's a dead man._

But it wasn't. It was Hikari.

 **I'm sorry if I seemed a bit off this afternoon. I just had this ache behind my eyes and... I guess I just don't want you to go.**

 **I mean, that sounds odd. We're just friends. But I always miss you on the days you don't come in, and I want to see you while I'm still around. Like, you know, still being a person and all that.**

 **Anyway, sorry.**

That was both good and bad, he thought with a sigh. She said she missed him on the days they didn't see each other, but from the way she was talking it didn't sound like she thought she had a lot of time left. And while he knew her condition was fatal, had never been anything but fatal, he began to wonder if there was more she wasn't telling him.

 _ **What makes you think you're not going to be around for much longer?**_

He sent it, then realised he wasn't sure if he wanted the answer. If he knew she was going to die soon, he probably wouldn't be able to make himself leave.

It took Hikari almost an hour to respond. By the time she did Kiba was in bed, and had worked himself up into a worried frenzy.

 _She's dying._

 _ **You already knew that.**_

 _Okay, she's going to die sooner._

 _ **What if she is? She's not your girlfriend. There's no way you'd be able to get out of the mission.**_

 _I can't leave her._

 _ **You don't have a choice.**_

His phone bleeped, and Kiba pounced upon it instantly.

 **Just cancer stuff. Nothing serious, but you never know when you might pop it. I just got worried earlier that maybe I wouldn't still be here when you got back. But that's unlikely. Just ignore me.**

He couldn't ignore her. He just couldn't. She had become a very central part of his life and if she was worried, he most definitely was.

 _I need to see her._

And that's how Kiba came to be dashing through Konoha upon the back of Akamaru at midnight, pounding towards a girl he was still denying his feelings for.

 _If I can just see her..._

 _...Everything will be okay._


End file.
